Angles: Airport security: a touchy subject

Invasion of privacy

By Zach Truelson

Airport security has long engaged in competiton with terrorists, directing scrutiny at sharp objects, shoes, liquids, and now underwear. This latest step has been widely seen not only as additional inconvenience, but as an invasion of privacy.

According to the TSA: the revealing images produced by backscattered x-rays and millimeter wave scanners have little potential for inappropriate use, those viewing the scans will not see the passengers in person, and the pictures will not be saved. Nevertheless, many object to being seen naked under any circumstances.

Are these worries rational? I would argue that it does not matter whether people should be bothered by the scans. What matters is that they arebothered.

When 30-50 percent of the people object to these measures on personal grounds, the security benefits must be reviewed.

Do scanners make travel safer? Yes, to some degree. Is that degree significant? Does it justify all this added cost and disturbance? An examination of the circumstances suggests otherwise.

The risk of hijacking has already been effectively negated by reinforced cockpit doors and armed pilots. What remains is the risk of direct damage to the aircraft and passengers.

Last January, Ben Wallace - former advisor at Qinetiq, the firm that developed the scanners - admitted that neither type of the scanners would have caught the underwear bomber's powdered explosives and liquid detonator. They can see through clothes, but weapons incorporated into the fabric will remain difficult to spot.

Even if scanners are improved to identify stealthier materials, they cannot see nonmetal objects inside the body.

Determined terrorists will always be able to utilize one or more body cavities for the smuggling of explosives. The TSA has reached a dead end.

The new scanners and pat-downs create significant disruption to passengers' comfort, while resulting in little meaningful improvement in security. Why bother?

Part of procedure

By Jeanette Rackl

On Nov. 1 the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) implemented new searches into the standard security check at airports across the country.

Officers are now required to conduct more thorough pat-downs for those passengers who require hand searches, such as people who set-off the metal detectors or refuse to pass through a body scanner. These pat-downs are not required for children under 12 years of age.

And boy, did all hell break loose.

People are outraged. They have threatened to urinate on officers during pat-downs, which are apparently akin to molestation. They have worn bikinis with the Fourth Amendment printed on them.

They have mourned the death of freedom and justice and all that is good in America, probably including rainbows.

The public needs to take a chill pill. Maybe TSA hasn't found the perfect balance in procedure yet, I understand that.

Is it awkward? Yes. A little uncomfortable? Definitely. Will it teach your children that being molested is OK? I think not.

I mean, the kids' parents are standing with them, watching. Mom is probably even holding their hand. Obviously, this is a procedure that happens only before boarding a plane.

If anything, explain that a TSA agent should never be approaching them in a park with a lollipop or a poodle.

And the backlash against the officials? Now that's shooting the messenger.

They're probably just as uncomfortable as passengers are. Did they wake up on Nov. 1 and do a jig when they found out they needed to pat-down hundreds of thighs daily? I think not.

I wouldn't want to pat their thigh, and I don't think they want to pat mine. Are we really conceited enough to think that as we are standing there awkwardly the TSA agent is relishing the moment?

Some people are even saying that this could all be solved if we did away with security all together. What's the point when a terrorist will just find the next body cavity to shove the explosive in?

These citizens will take their chances and lose the hassle, because at least they died free.

Right.

And it's not about dignity. Honestly, people are so worried about preserving their honor, modesty or whatever, that they are missing the point. Terrorists don't care about dignity, they care about killing people.

They don't even care about their own dignity, or at least in our sense of the word. No one who's willing to shove explosives up and into their bodies in order to kill a plane full of people can.

I think that the development of methods for screening passengers is an ongoing learning process. TSA is figuring out what works, and what doesn't.

They are only trying to counter the threats in the best way possible. Not perfectly, not absolutely, but as best as they can.

Sure it won't stop all the bad guys, but it'll stop some of them. And it'll at least make them get creative.